Half-strength armies annihilated without overrun or encirclement?

[Pal]

Hi guys,

it's me again with another question: Playing as Soviet Union in latest CORE on normal/normal, I get royally creamed during the winter of 41/42 by the Germans. I appreciate that the Wehrmacht is more capable during this period, but they are attacking me in frozen weather with 8 infantry/reserve divisions vs my 20+ infantries and I lose. Which would be bad enough by itself, but I really lose the divisions, not just the battle. I get dozens of messages like "army annihilated" and so on, with the armies in question being at about 30-50% strength right before annihilation, no encirclements, no Germans beating me to retreat provinces or somesuch.

Is this a feature in CORE? If so, how exactly does it work? I just lost my Odessa army of 40 infantry divisions in a series of a few battles, each being like the one described above...

Thanks in advance!

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

This doesn't sound like anything I've seen when playing as the SOV. The "army annihilated" msgs are odd sounding. You do need a really large numerical advantage as the SOV d2 the combined effects of being 6 BN/RES/Techs/Leaders if you are playing somewhat historical. So losing an 8-20 battle isn't exactly odd. I'd add that Frozen is really not a big deal in CORE. Are you using VOV? Any more info on a typical battle might be helpful to identify the issue.

mm

 

[Pal]

Thanks for the response! I'm not using any special orders, just parking my corps of 3 regular infantry each, brigaded with combat engineers, artillery and anti-tank. The Germans just mass assault me, I researched as many doctrines as I could, I have 1939 infantry just like them, I disbanded all my reserve divisions in 1936 while they attack with almost 20% reserves. Still they beat me without losing much org. I have total air superiority, but after a few weeks all of my light and medium bombers are at 20% strength from interdiction missions.

My main issue is not losing the battles, but e.g. in Balta I had 32 divisions, 5 armored and the rest infantry as described above - Germans attacking me in frozen weather with pure infantry/reserve armies, our modifiers were pretty similar, their reserves lost much strength while my infantry lost mostly org. Suddenly I get messages telling me that my army in Balta was annihilated. So I reviewed the battle, but didn't find any division below 50% strength. So I unpaused again - and boom, another few armies gone. I thought it was a messaging bug like the one with the battle started messages. A few days later, only 5 tanks were retreating from Balta, the 27 infantry divisions were all gone.

 

[Blecky]

Seems to be a problem of AoD vanilla. See this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/odd-overrun-mechanic.853204/

 

[Pal]

Thanks a lot, this might very well be the explanation! I did indeed try to evacuate Balta before I got attacked, so all of these units had a move order during the battle..

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

Yes, that seems likely.

On the subject of aircraft the problem is driven by the AoD mechanics of aircraft getting shot back at by every unit in the province. The large stacks common during the GER-SOV action tend to generate a lot of aircraft losses. There isn't anything to do about it as it is stack size dependent.

mm

 

[lollibast]

Hi Pal,
i consider myself somewhat of an SU expert. Some tipps that might be useful:
dont disband your reserves, they might be weak but they benefit greatly from brigade attachments, so make sure every division has one. rocket artillery or assault guns are fine, the former being big bang for the buck, the latter good combat value. see which suits your economy best
also regarding your divisions: wait to upgrade them until you research inf-39, thus it will be greatly cheaper. it is a close call time-wise but can be pulled off
set your bombers to ground attack, you are fighting a war of attrition, let tem suffer as much mp loss as possible. Only attack where they are on the move or fighting
have you tried to set up a defense in depth? ie along the pre war border? defending those former polish provinces is a pain